This episode of the Faith & Clarity podcast features Pastor Thomas West and Trevin Wax in a conversation about an ancient but timely tool for discipleship—the catechism. Their new resource, The Gospel Way Catechism: 50 Truths That Take On the Word, is designed to help Christians push back against the secular and individualistic stories of our age with the truth of God’s word.
The discussion explores how catechisms can guide both new and mature believers, shape family life and community, and build a deep and resilient Christian identity. Listeners will also hear practical ways to bring this practice into daily discipleship and spiritual formation.
At its heart, this is a conversation about grounding faith, strengthening hearts, and learning to live with confidence in God’s story—more by faith, and less by fear.
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Topics
- (00:23): Understanding the catechism
- (01:39): Meet the guests: Thomas West and Trevin Wax
- (04:05): Cultural narratives and their impact
- (08:12): Defining individualism and secularism
- (13:04): The role and history of catechisms
- (19:25): Creating The Gospel Way Catechism
- (22:21): Addressing identity in today’s world
- (27:54): Practical Christianity in Ephesians
- (30:34): The power of catechisms
- (38:32): Evangelical and liturgical tools
- (43:05): Guarding against mere knowledge
- (48:07): Confronting secular narratives
- (51:02): Conclusion and final thoughts
Resources
- Ask Us Anything: [email protected]
- How has Denison Forum impacted your faith?
- The Gospel Way Catechism
- The Gospel Way Catechism: 50 Truths That Take On the Word
- Trevin Wax Social Media
- Thomas West Social Media
About Trevin Wax
Trevin Wax is vice president of research and resource development at the North American Mission Board and a visiting professor at Cedarville University. A former missionary to Romania, Trevin is a regular columnist at The Gospel Coalition and has lectured on Christianity and culture at Oxford University. His new book is The Gospel Way Catechism.
About Thomas West
Thomas West is the pastor of Nashville First Baptist Church and the founder and former pastor of Redeemer Queen’s Park in London, England. A two-time graduate of Southeastern Seminary in Wake Forest, North Carolina, Thomas’s ministry and research are driven by exploring the intersection of theology, culture, and mission in Western culture. His new book is The Gospel Way Catechism.
About Dr. Mark Turman
Mark Turman, DMin, serves as the Executive Director of Denison Forum, where he leads with a passion for equipping believers to navigate today’s complex culture with biblical truth. He is best known as the host of the Faith & Clarity podcast and the lead pastor of the Possum Kingdom Chapel, the in-person congregation of Denison Ministries.
Dr. Turman is the coauthor of Sacred Sexuality: Reclaiming God’s Design and Who Am I? What the Bible Says About Identity and Why it Matters. He earned his undergraduate degree from Howard Payne University in Brownwood, Texas, and received his Master of Divinity from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth. He later completed his Doctor of Ministry at George W. Truett Theological Seminary at Baylor University in Waco.
Before joining Denison Forum, Mark served as a pastor for 35 years, including 25 years as the founding pastor of Crosspoint Church in McKinney, Texas.
Mark and his high school sweetheart, Judi, married in 1986. They are proud parents of two adult children and grandparents to three grandchildren.
About Denison Forum
Denison Forum exists to thoughtfully engage the issues of the day from a biblical perspective through The Daily Article email newsletter and podcast, the Faith & Clarity podcast, as well as many books and additional resources.
EPISODE TRANSCRIPT
NOTE: This transcript was AI-generated and has not been fully edited.
Dr. Mark Turman: [00:00:00] Welcome to the Faith & Clarity podcast, offered to you by Denison Forum. I’m Mark Turman, the host for today’s conversation. Wanna remind you that our goal in our podcast is to help you find hope, be beyond the headlines and the issues of today, so that you can live more by faith. Rather than by fear.
In honor of the late Todd Beamer, let’s roll into our conversation today. We wanna help you think more biblically and live more holy lives by using a tool that you may or may not be familiar with, the tool called a catechism. And don’t let that scare you off if it sounds too old. Too ancient or too theological.
We’re gonna define that word. Maybe I can give you a, a word picture. One of the things I inherited from my grandfather was some of the tools that he used in his garden. He yet loved to just grow flowers and plants and beautiful landscapes all around his yard. And so I have two or three tools that were handed down for [00:01:00] me.
One is a crowbar that’s just huge. And another is a shovel. I hesitate to use this shovel number one because it’s old and it has a very unique shaped handle that I don’t want to break, but I have it in my garage alongside of the more quote unquote modern shovels that have handles made out of synthetics or metals.
But both of them do the same thing. They help me dig, and that’s what a catechism can help you do. It can help you dig into your faith. In a deeper way, and we’re gonna talk about the need to do that and a new tool that has been created by Pastor Thomas West and also Trevin Wax. Let me introduce these two guys to you.
Thomas West is the pastor of Nashville First Baptist Church, and he is the founder and former pastor of Redeemer Queens Park. London, England, that automatically puts me and Trevin at a disadvantage because that means that he has a, an accent that we can’t compete with. So [00:02:00] we’re just gonna acknowledge that at the beginning.
Thomas is also a two-time graduate of Southeastern Seminary in Wake Forest North Carolina. Thomas’s ministry and research. Have been driven by exploring the intersection of theology, culture, and mission in Western culture. That’s right in line with what Denison Forum is all about. Our friend Trevon Wax is Vice President of Research and resource development at the North American Mission Board.
He is a visiting professor at Cedarville University. He is also a former missionary to Romania. And Trevin can be found as a regular columnist with the Gospel Coalition, which if you haven’t discovered that research resource, we highly recommend it. He is also lectured at Oxford University on the intersection of Christianity and culture.
Guys, welcome to the Faith and Clarity Podcast today.
Trevin Wax: Thanks for having us.
Dr. Mark Turman: Yeah, very happy to be here. Thank you. Now just gonna, Thomas, you just have to tone down that accent because it’s just not fair. People will, people in America will listen [00:03:00] to you for no other reason than because they love to hear the accent.
We’re just gonna keep pushing on that all the way through this. So guys, thank you for this new resource called The Gospel Way Catechism. We want to dig into that. Understand. Some of us in the evangelical world probably don’t recognize the word catechism that much or that often. I came in my early life, first decade of my life, I was raised in the Roman Catholic Church.
My family dropped outta church. And then I came into the evangelical church Later on. I had some sense of this word catechism from my early childhood, but haven’t run into it a lot. In my experience for the last 40 or so years even though we’ve been doing catechism in a lot of different ways, it’s not something that I’ve used the term that much.
One of the quotes out of the introduction to the book that you co-wrote says this, the Christian story told in the Bible needs to be taught [00:04:00] alongside and even against the secular narratives of the day. So as we get started, let’s just talk about the problem that you guys identified that you wanted to try to address.
How about one of you just tell us a simple definition. What do you mean by cultural narrative?
Trevin Wax: Yeah. I think we mark, when we talk about cultural narratives, we’re talking about these, the stories that we live in. The, the, the way that we, you know, you could use it as a, a another way of saying worldview or the way that we look at our, our world, the way that we act in our world, we all act out of a story we believe.
You know that the world is going a, a, a certain direction, or we think of ourselves as inhabiting a particular place and time in the world. We have to answer the question even if we never write it down. We have to, we do have, we do operate with a, with an answer to the question of who are we? What’s the future like?
Where, where are we headed? What’s the [00:05:00] purpose of life? And cultural narratives are different ways of answering questions like that. They’re constantly forming us. They’re shaping us. We, we tend to, without thinking live out of these stories because they’re the air we breathe. They’re the water that we, that we swim in.
And so that’s what we mean by by cultural narrative. Thomas May have a, a, a way of adding a little bit to, to that particular language.
Thomas Wax: Yeah, that’s it. Trevin. Just to name a few of the, maybe maybe the big three. There’s the identity narrative. Everybody’s looking for an answer. Everybody must supply an answer to the question, who am I?
You know, the cultural answer. The, the cultural narrative will lead us to find that answer by looking inside of yourself and being true to yourself, and then publishing that to the world. The gospel answer is you’re made in the image of God. You’re redeemed in Jesus Christ. The freedom narrative what makes me free we could come back to this later [00:06:00] perhaps, but this very popular idea, freedom is being free from all constraints.
The Bible says, no, you’re actually f free to worship someone or something. We see this in the exodus and the exodus pattern of freedom, meaning what gives my life purpose cultural answer, the cultural narratives around this really about man, you, you get to figure that out for yourself and you get to publish that to the world.
You get to define your own meaning. The gospel comes along, talks about how meaning is intrinsic. You’re made in the image of God. You’re a person made in the image of God. God has a place for you and his story. That’s where meaning comes from. So cultural narratives are a lot like background music. You know, if we were all sitting in a coffee shop, somebody would draw attention to the background music.
It’s always playing. It’s always on. It’s shaping how we think, even if we’re paying attention to it or not. Yeah,
Dr. Mark Turman: that’s a, a good word. And for me, the, the music would almost always be too loud. And for many of us it is, [00:07:00] but it, it kind of helps us understand that we all, we all do see our lives as a story that we’re writing or that’s being written.
Maybe a combination of the two in maybe the best sense, but that we’re, we’re writing a story or God is writing a story with us. Other people are writing their stories. We bump into their stories, we’re a part of their stories. And then there’s this big story. That’s operating all around us. You, you describe how you wanted to confront some of what’s come in, in what I would call the, the vacuum of apathy in our culture.
We talked before we started about the, the missionary and theologian, Les Newgen learned about him, as you guys did in a seminary context and some of what he experienced. And how he saw basically the vacuum of apathy that was a part of his time and how narratives that were not in alignment with the Bible grew up in that vacuum.
You guys call out the, the narrative of individualism and secularism as. The thing that you want to [00:08:00] confront with the new formation of this catechism. Let’s define those terms a little bit here at the beginning. What is, what do we mean by individualism and what do we mean by secularism?
Trevin Wax: Yeah, so individualism is this is a, a term that comes to us.
It’s been altered a bit and, and added to by some sociologists the past 30 years or so. Robert Bella In the book Habits of the Heart gives the term expressive individualism, and that’s basically the idea that the individual is at the center of life. The individual alone from any obligations from outside of his or herself is these are the, it’s the solitary individual determining for himself or herself what.
You know, they want to be determining what their purpose of life is, determining meaning for themselves, and then expressing that to the world. So you look in first to discover who you are and define yourself by your deepest desires. Then you look around to others for affirmation maybe, and [00:09:00] then if you still want to, you can look up to God or to some higher power for some kind of feeling of transcendence to sprinkle on your life.
But for the most part, expressive individualism focuses on that. Idea that the purpose of life is to find and be true to yourself. Mm-hmm. And then express that self to the world for others’ affirmation. That’s just the way we breathe.
Dr. Mark Turman: And Trevor, let me ask if kind of related to that, foundational to that is this idea that there’s no such thing as absolute truth and all truth is personal and subjective, therefore.
You need to figure out what you believe is true and then that will help you define who you are. Is that kind of tied into this?
Trevin Wax: Oh, absolutely. Because it basically means there’s no objective or there’s no reality outside of yourself that you have to conform to. Mm-hmm. There’s only reality as you, as you want to make it.
You know, like you are the one who you’ve got to determine meaning for yourself because there’s no meaning. Outside of yourself now people can be expressive, individualists, and still very religious. [00:10:00] It’s just that they refashion religion as part of the project for being, you know, finding and being true to themselves.
Dr. Mark Turman: Okay. All right. Thomas, give us an understanding of what we mean by secularism in this context.
Thomas Wax: Yeah. You know, Newgen had this had this quote, I’ll, I’ll read it to you. It comes into mind as, as soon as you ask the good question. Newgen says, the secular society is not a neutral area into which we can project the Christian mess message.
It is an area already occupied by other gods. We have a battle on our hands. We are dealing with principalities. And with powers Newgen saw it clearly. There’s, there’s no neutral space where the gospel gets proclaimed and embodied. It’s every space is gonna be inhabited by different gods. And secularism is a, is the idea that.
The world is all there is God is absent. So the story of self-sufficiency and progress can crop up and dominate there. What we’re [00:11:00] trying to say is that story about this world being all there is and there is no God. That itself, that is a story. That is a narrative and people who adhere to that and are living their life according to that script or what, that is one of the scripts that are defining someone’s life.
We need to figure out how to bring the gospel to bear on someone who’s living in that particular. Culture and cultural moment. And then the big idea in the catechism is when the gospel isn’t filling our lungs we end up bre breathing in the smog of secularism and individualism. As Trevin has already said, even when we don’t notice it, it’s the air that’s all around us.
We’re, we’re breathing in these stories. Our concern here in part is even the church is breathing this in as we’re trying to work out our own discipleship to the Lord Jesus.
Dr. Mark Turman: Okay. So that, that just makes me immediately go to this idea, Thomas, that when we’re born we should not have the idea that e [00:12:00] everything’s just a blank slate, and that we’re starting with a clean piece of paper, if you will.
That we’re actually stepping into a story that’s been going a long time before we showed up. And that that story has a lot of players in it. And that if we, if we think that history started with us. Then we’re already off the mark, if you will. We’re, we’re already going down a a narrative that is not aligned with what the Bible says is reality.
Am am I thinking about that the right way?
Thomas Wax: Yeah, I think you are. I, I, I certainly I certainly, i, I, I certainly think you are. And the, the imagery of granddad’s, shovel is is, is coming back right now and any things that are old to help tether us to the past and remind us different tools and purposes and different seasons, we can get there with the catechism.
But you’re, you’re, you’re exactly right. So secular culture is promoting this narrative. History begins with you. Your life is yours to invent. But it cuts us off from our wisdom. From wisdom. It cuts us off from roots. It leaves [00:13:00] us vulnerable to false stories that threaten all around.
Dr. Mark Turman: All right.
That’s a, that’s a perfect segue to the next word that I want us to define, to set the context for our conversation, which is, what in the world is a catechism? If you, depending on who, who you are, where you come from, what your background in faith and church life might be, this might be a very familiar word that you know, might be some people a word they wanna run away from.
But for other people, like they’re scratching their head going, what do you mean by catechism? What is a catechism and what is it for?
Trevin Wax: You know, it’s really a catechism is just the ancient word. Catechesis is really just the ancient word for instruction, and a catechism is a particular tool. It’s got an ancient pedigree.
It’s a tool of discipleship that uses a question and answer format to to teach. New believers, young believers, old believers, the basic truths of Christianity. So even though the word catechism can sound a little scary, ’cause it’s not a word that we use in our everyday language it really a, a catechism that’s done [00:14:00] well is meant to be super accessible.
Like the whole point of it is to simplify in very concise, memorizable simplified language to explain the basics of the Christian faith in a way that shows how the biblical worldview. Stands out from, you know, whatever you find on offer in society. So you can go back to the, you know, to the centuries right after the, you know, the, the early church they were already using they, they called ’em catechumens, basically, people that were waiting for baptism or that were going through and.
Learning, what does it mean for us to confess Jesus’s Lord to follow in his way? What does it mean to pray the Lord’s prayer? What does it mean for us to, to recite the Apostle’s creed? What does it mean for us to understand how we keep or we don’t? The 10 Commandments. And, and then you see in the Reformation era, there’s this explosion of catechisms that, that come about from various groups in different parts of Europe and whatnot.
But all with that same passion. How do we [00:15:00] instruct. New believers, young children, whoever it is that we’ve got to instruct, how do we instruct them in the basics of the Christian faith in using this question and answer format? So it’s a, you know, it’s an ancient tool of discipleship’s, got a long pedigree, but we think it’s, we don’t think it’s irrelevant.
We think it’s actually something that we can, we can pull back out, you know, of the, the toolbox and dust it off and say, Hey, let’s, you know, give this a new sheen and give it a go for a new generation.
Dr. Mark Turman: Yeah, sounds like a, a great idea. It also reminds me of conversation I had with another pastor Glen EU out in California.
He came back to the ENE Creed and wrote a sermon series and a bible study that people can access just. Around the fundamental aspects of the ING Creed, kind of another similar type approach. So you, you said that you wanted it to be accessible, which I thought was interesting because I did a little background research about some of these other catechisms confessions.
Some of them are quite long. The one I [00:16:00] probably should have known most about is by an English pastor named Benjamin Keach. His catechism had 119 elements or questions in it, I believe. Then you have the Westminster Confession. You have a number of these. Thomas, how did you first of all, tell us the seven big topics that you guys unpack.
They’re actually, remind me if I get it wrong, 50 different questions, but they are grouped in seven sections. Those sections are God creation and identity, fallen sin, redemption, salvation by the spirit, the people of God, and future hope. How Thomas, how did you guys decide to use those categories and.
To kind of limit yourself to 50 major questions. How did you guys work through that?
Thomas Wax: Yeah, thank you very much. You know, like granddad’s sh shovel we could examine it for those signs of wear and tear and we could imagine those different jobs that it was useful to help get [00:17:00] done in the past.
And we could we could look at the other catechisms that exist and we can examine those wear marks. We can look for consistencies and patterns between the different catechisms. And that, that was certainly helpful from a historical perspective. Helping us understand what has been popular, what the spirit, I would say, what the spirit of Christ has confirmed through the witness and testimony of Christians in different times and places down through the centuries.
We were looking for a tool that we could put in the hands of someone who comes to faith out of the secular Western individual district story over the next 10 years. We were looking for a tool. What can we give to that person that will help? Debunk demystify, tify some of the narratives and stories that they were living in.
How can we deconstruct those stories and reconstruct Christianity in its place? So when we thought about the 50 questions we tried something that would follow the narrative arc of the scriptures. We begin [00:18:00] with God and then we move clean through the story. Trevin has some wonderful insights. We should hear from him on about how all of the real threats that we face, the challenges against the church in this season, they’re anthropological.
So we have a very large section on creation and identity. That’s a bit of a, a nuance or a contrast to some of the great catechisms of the faith. The great catechisms of the faith. They were oftentimes written to clear up theological heresy or theological confusion in the life of a believer. And we wrote this one not trying to stir it up or to clear up theological, heresy and theological confusion.
We were aiming to clear up some of the cultural distortions, the cultural heresies, and the cultural confusions that threaten a believer’s joy in life in Jesus Christ. So we saw 50 questions and answers, moving one through the narrative arc of scripture, really trying to teach Christianity in a beginner fashion to someone who potentially has never heard of it before.
[00:19:00] But it’s not really something that’s for someone who’s far from God and coming to faith for the first time. We’re already seeing just in the last couple of months seasoned believers talking about how encouraging and helpful of a refresher course this has been to people who’ve been walking with Jesus for a long time.
Dr. Mark Turman: Yeah. Vin, what else did you want us to know about? Just how the book got put together, how the catechism came to be formed?
Trevin Wax: Yeah. You know, there’s a, there’s a fun part of the origin story for this. We, you know, Thomas and I have been talking for, for a couple of years actually, about the need for this. We both, we both were influenced not only by Leslie Newgen, but also by.
Tim Keller, who in the last few years of his life in talking about what we need for the renewal of the church in our day, what kept, you know, one of the, the things on his list was Counter catechism. Counter catechism, when by then he meant not just the presentation of the basics of Christianity, the presentation of basics of Christianity in a way that shows how that stands out from some of the [00:20:00] cultural narratives of our world, so that you can see how.
Christianity will push against, but also fulfill some of the deeper longings that lead people to fall for those cultural narratives to begin with. So that element of counter catechesis was something that, that I immediately, when I remember hearing Tim talk about that the very first time, I thought, I think I could help with that at some point.
What I, I was actually in we were both in the UK at this time. I was in Oxford. Doing some, some teaching at Wycliffe Hall, and I had a study leave where I spent a couple of weeks living in the kilns, which is the, the house that CS Lewis lived in for more than 30 years. The house he died in as well.
And so I was a scholar in residence at the kilns and was doing some work there. Thomas brought the, he came down with the train from. From London and we actually spent a full day there in the common room of the kilns, you know, in that very room where Lewis wrote some of his best known works and apologetics and, and some of his letters.
And we basically just were in that room working on this prayerfully considering, you know, what are the 50 questions [00:21:00] that we think we should lay out? What are the, the different cultural narratives that we should oppose? What are the ways that we can come to these questions, asking them? You know, basically with a, not this, but that element, you know, you’ve heard it said in the world, the Bible says something better, something different, you know, and to kind of lead out in that way.
And we really have the full catechism mapped out by the end of that day. Again, the, the major difference is, and, and we, we wanna make sure that we’re clear here. We are not trying to reinvent the wheel here and to do something better than than Westminster Catechism or the Heidelberg Catechism, or Ke or any of the others.
We look at our work as a supplement for a new day where we basically, and you’ll even notice some of the language from some of the ancient catechisms of the older ones. They make their way into ours as well because we, we, we wanna build on their, their, those shoulders. But we really wanna push against some of the cultural narratives in today’s world.
Like someone who’s coming, who’s new to the faith now, what are some of the [00:22:00] cultural narratives they’re coming out of? Those are the questions that we’re asking, and that formed up that really did inform the way that we, we asked and answered some of the questions that we did.
Dr. Mark Turman: Alright, that’s a great way to build kind of the framework context for some of the other elements that are in here.
So we’re gonna take a break for a couple of minutes. Let everybody catch their breath and get a little more coffee. And then when we come back, guys, I wanna dig into some of these cultural narratives that you’re trying to counter, particularly starting with the idea of identity. Such a big, big topic in our world these days.
And we’ll come back in just a moment and pick it up at that point. All right, we’re back talking with Trevon Wax and Thomas West about their new book, the Gospel Catechism, and some of the details about how this ca catechism builds on other ancient Christian catechisms and is a good word, a counter word for our day to help people think more biblically.
Guys, I was thinking as I was getting ready and looking through and [00:23:00] working through your work. About how you guys work through and talk about identity, which may be one of the most overused words in the last, at least 20 years. I had a bible study teacher in my early years of faith guy from Atlanta named Dan De Hah, who was teaching at a moment through the early chapters of Ephesians, and he said, you know what?
If I can get a person to understand who they are in Christ, everything else will take care of itself. Your book kind of goes down that road that Dhan was pointing to. Talk a little bit from how your book addresses the idea that we talked before the break Trevin about God offering us something better, something more beautiful.
It’s just occurred to me lately that trying to create your own identity is an overwhelming crushing kind of task. That human beings were never really designed to try to perform on their own. How [00:24:00] does your catechism help people understand their identity from God’s point of view rather than attempting to produce it themselves?
Trevin Wax: Yeah, this is, it’s, this is one of the big challenges that we face in our world today is this question of. Being ourselves, making ourselves, presenting ourselves, especially in a social media age. I just think about just the formational aspects of so many of young people today who have grown up in a digital era where they can virtually create and recreate their persona online over and over and over again.
Even within the course of just a few years. You know, like a digital makeovers even easier than a physical. Kind of makeover. And this is, this is one of the challenges that we face is where, where do I find who I am or who I’m supposed to be? And you got a lot of self-help books out there that will tell you, you know, I was thinking of one that’s called The Happiness Project came out a few years ago.
Really delightful book in a lot of ways, but very much in line with this sort of, you’ve gotta determine who you’re gonna [00:25:00] be. And the author of this basically says, be yourself is the first and greatest commandment. You know, like that’s the first thing. And, but then immediately she runs into this challenge of recognizing, okay, I run into this problem of, is my real self the person I want to be, the person I’m striving to be?
Or is it the person that I am now? Should I accept myself as I am? Is that the real me, even with all my flaws and failures and where I’m not measuring up? Or is it that person I’m trying to become, you know, like the better version of myself, the best version of myself? And so right away there’s already that conflict of who is who is the real me.
But notice that the answer that she can give and that a lot of people in our society today would give is you have to determine that. You have to determine that for yourself. You’ve gotta look inside to determine who you’re gonna be. And what we wanna say is yes, there’s a place for the individual.
God does create us in his image. God does create us as unique human beings with [00:26:00] contributions that we will make to his plan and to his purposes. But that we don’t look in first, we look up to his design, we bow to him. And it’s only, the purpose of life is not to invent and discover for ourselves who will, who we will be, but to discover who God has made us to be, to, to look to his purpose, to his word, to bow before him and his design.
And that’s actually, it sounds, that sounds counterintuitive in our world where. It’s if I’m gonna look outside, that’s gonna squelch who I am inside, or that’s gonna come against me, it’s gonna press me into some mold. But actually, this is the most freeing way to live because this is who we were made to be.
We were never made to determine for ourselves who we would be, but to look to God, our creator, to tell us who we are. And so it’s actually more freeing to live in line with that because that’s what we are made for. It’s like a fish. In the water is, is what we were made for, you know, rather than a fish flopping out onto dry land.
We, we, we, we tend to chafe against that notion in our [00:27:00] day and age, but this is really where true freedom and true understanding of who we were made to be, where we can find that.
Dr. Mark Turman: Yeah, really, really helpful. And like I said, just so overwhelming. And I think maybe a lot of the anxiety, some of the depression that we see in our culture is from people trying to carry this weight.
Of inventing themselves and then reinventing themselves. And like you said you know, the struggle of well, is am I just supposed to accept what I, what I know of myself right now? Or should I have some aspiration to be something more, something different? Thomas, let me ask you to chase this a little bit further.
Referencing my friend that my Bible teacher in my early years maybe it’s not as simple as what he was saying. I think there’s a lot of truth in what he was saying. Obviously, from. What the Bible teaches us about our identity in Christ, particularly, Ephesians is a great place to go. But let me bounce this question off of you as a pastor.
If, if just simply understanding our foundational identity in Christ is [00:28:00] enough and as powerful as that is. Why does God in scripture through people like Paul and Peter why does he still include specific moral commands? And I’m thinking again about Ephesians, one of my favorite parts of the Bible, where you have this deep, rich, I identity and theology in the first few chapters.
And then it’s very practical in the last few chapters where God inspires Paul to say things like, Hey, don’t steal from one another. And don’t dishonor each other. He is very, very specific about what we would call moral behavior and moral commands, and I think we would all generally agree that behavior follows belief.
But why does he also need to include that part? Do you think? Good. So good. ‘
Thomas Wax: cause this embodied Christianity that we’re invited into, it’s going to express itself. It’s going to show up in how we live and how we act, how we work, and how we relate to people. So you’re, you’re spot on. [00:29:00] Those great indicatives, those great truths of scripture those imperatives, they, they flow from them.
Be this kind of person. And as you focus on being this kind of person, eventually by God’s grace for God’s glory, you’ll behave in such a way where you’re drawing attention to God. So we do see that right there in Ephesians, those first three chapters on identity. Those next three chapters flowing from identity this, this shockingly practical vision.
Of, of Christianity. I think, I think we’re consistently taught that a, across the pages of scripture because old habits do die hard. ’cause while we are new creation the, the old self still tugs away at us because community matters to us. We’re, there’s, there’s no solo project here. Lots of the things we’re told to do.
Even there with quit stealing from one another, it leads us out to all of those different, one another commands. That, that we have and, and [00:30:00] how we’re supposed to, to live it out. And I think it takes us in that direction, that Christianity, it is not some mere truth that we ascent to. It’s an entire way of being.
It’s this truth that gets embodied and we behave according to these wonderful truths that we come to, to believe and, and to endorse. It shows up in all of life.
Dr. Mark Turman: Yeah, nothing is the, as the theologian said, there’s no area of the world or the universe that God doesn’t say it’s mine. It’s, it’s all about our relationship with him.
Guys, I’m just wondering, you, you’ve spent a lot of work putting this together and trying to bring this wonderful and ancient tool of question and answer. That’s a unique thing about Catechisms in many ways, is that. They try to, they try to present what questions are people asking and then how does the Bible answer them in very concise, but very thought provoking ways.
Just wondering, how have you [00:31:00] guys personally benefited from the use of a catechism, either this one that you’ve created or other ones that you’ve studied? How have they helped you spiritually and personally in your own walk of faith?
Trevin Wax: You know, I’ve remember I was actually doing catechism before I could read because my parents, when, when I was even in preschool, were already teaching me basic question and answers about Bible doctrines as they were raising me up as a believer.
And and then when I went to a, i, I went to a Christian school where they didn’t call it a catechism ’cause I think that sounded too. Scary or weird or Catholic or whatever. I don’t know whether they, why they, they called it just Bible truths, but they, they had a book of questions and answers and we would, we learned the answers as a class and we would recite them out loud, you know?
And I still remember some of those from, from any kid. And so I’ve always known from experience. This can be a pretty powerful and long lasting way of learning. Scriptural truth of, of, of [00:32:00] knowing Good sound Christian doctrine and teaching. There, there are parts of the catechisms that, the classic ones that are just so memorable.
So you think about the, the, the first question to the Westminster shorter catechism. What is the chief end of man? This is the older way of saying what is the ultimate purpose for humanity? And the answer is the chief end of man is to glorify God and enjoy him forever. I mean, what a rich answer to that question.
How much in that is packed into that one? Answer. It’s just, it’s beautiful, it’s concise, it’s true, it’s biblical. You think about the, the, the answer, the, the answer to the first question in the Heidelberg Catechism, what is my only comfort in life and death? And it talks about how my only comfort in life and death is that Jesus Christ has paid the price for my sins.
He is rescued me from the tyranny of the devil, that I belong to him, that I am not my own, but belong to Him body and soul. I just, I mean, it’s a [00:33:00] beautiful articulation. Of the comfort we receive in the gospel. When you look at some of these older catechisms, I mean, it’s not just that they’re amazing to memorize, it’s that they’re amazing to ignite your heart like to, to, to, to set your heart on fire and the truth of, of, of what God teaches us.
So I’ve always been a fan of catechisms at their best ’cause. I think that they can be very effective. For us, this was a matter of, okay, if we put our hand to this, inspired by some of those older catechisms. We’re not trying to compete with those classics, you know, we’re, but we wanna to bring some of the insights from those classics into the contemporary world to push against some of the cultural narratives and to show the gospel way is better.
It’s truer, it’s richer, it’s, it’s more life giving than anything we have on offer in the world.
Thomas Wax: Yeah, a good word. Until just. Yeah, no, I draw just a, a few additional points, points of help that I could carry on with Trevin with what he’s bringing here. I found them to [00:34:00] be a great tool to use in my own parenting.
Where it was sitting with our kids over in London around the breakfast table through COVID working on new City Catechism by Keller and Hansen. Wonderful resource, which does a fantastic job of gathering up really a highlight reel of the great catechisms and bringing them forward. And we even appreciate what was even written in, in that one.
This is intended to be a bit of a gateway catechism to get people onto the, the Great Catechisms. So grateful for that and having that as a discipleship tool, sitting around the breakfast table, reading it with our children, asking them questions, hearing their answers, holding their hand, walking over to the school gate, asking ’em again, and having ’em recite it back to us.
You can see how. A a catechism, like a great old shovel is is it is really a way to live out the Shema. Deuteronomy chapter six, we’re rehearsing truths about God with our kids. And the catechism has been a wonderful tool, tool for me in, in my own parenting. [00:35:00] I, I’ll tell you what, in my, in my pastoring.
As someone with a great affinity for systematic theology I find Catechisms to be a wonderful resource to go to. When I’m looking for, I could, I could read the whole, the whole chapter of, of Frame or Bob Inc. Or whoever. But what’s the, what’s almost the pithy saying to boil it all down to? As a, as a pastor, as a preacher, I’ve really enjoyed consulting with Catechisms as as tools to help me see how these great theological concepts get boiled down sometimes to a sentence or a paragraph.
And we’re really hoping that this would be able to serve both purposes going forward for pastors and preachers to have a bit of a at hand resource to be able to grab and grab a quick very sturdy definition of 50 concepts that are cores of Christianity. Maybe just a good time to gently mention coming out next summer is going to be a children’s edition of the Catechism specifically designed for [00:36:00] middle readers and there we’re hoping to be able to deliver to families, to homes, to small groups, to hold churches.
Really a discipleship ecosystem where here’s something to read with the kids at the breakfast table. Here’s something for mom and dad to read on their bedside table to carry in and to discuss with your church community group where the language for the, the children’s version we had to flight.
Some of the answers a little different and redesign the commentary sections. But, but we were just thinking what a resource for stressed out moms and dads. Looking for just something to set before the kids along with the dinner to be able to encourage them and to feed their souls.
Dr. Mark Turman: Yeah, it just makes me think that, you know, kinda like gardening. My, my grandfather had a shovel, but he had several other tools as well. That’s right. You know, I think we would all embrace and encourage Christians, Hey, get a Bible reading plan. And we, you know, we have these technological tools like YouVersion and you know, we would encourage people to get into scripture consistently, have a Bible reading plan.
We know that many people read [00:37:00] and grow from devotionals which are. Lots of great tools out there of basic short daily devotionals that people use. This sounds like an additional tool. You know, you have the shovel, you have the rake you have the hoe, you have, you have different tools that you use to, to grow a garden.
That is beautiful and that is a blessing to others. That’s the way discipleship is. That’s and this sounds like a, a great tool that could be added to a person’s toolbox really. For, like you said, parenting as well as growing as a young Christian. And I love the idea that, you know, even mature believers are coming back to this as a way of refreshing and reenergizing their faith around, Hey, let’s, you know, almost everything we do in our world today is as fast as we can make it happen.
But this feels like a really good way of what I would call drip discipleship of taking a very important question. Getting a very significant and concise answer, but [00:38:00] then you can, I love the way the book is laid out. There’s additional scripture and there are thought provoking questions afterward to kind of take you deeper and let you dig in a little bit further.
I wanted to get you guys to a, to kind of answer this just as a perspective. It feels like modern day Evangelicals particularly. Have not utilized this, this kind of tool as much as maybe liturgical churches have. Has that been y’all’s observation and do you think there’s a reason why? If that’s true?
Trevin Wax: Yeah. So I, I do think that’s the case. I, I think there’s, there’s something about evangelicalism today that, that believes that kind of just looks against anything that would seem rote. Or reciting or repetitious, you know, which, w which, and, and, and you, you, you see that in, for example, even like our worship services and songs and whatnot, there’s a, there tends to be an emphasis on spontaneity.[00:39:00]
Rather than something that is written that’s, that’s too formal or too, you know, put together in that way. And I, I, I think there’s some good reason for that. ’cause I do think it’s possible to fill your head with a bunch of knowledge memorized Bible versus memorized catechism answers do written prayers or whatever in a way that’s not really engaging the heart, it’s just sort of going through the motions.
And Evangelicals has always been about a renewal of the heart, right? So I think there, there tends to, there there can be a little bit of an allergy. Toward the idea of catechism or the idea of written prayers, or the idea of a liturgical structure that’s too formal in some way, because we don’t wanna be the ones that, you know, that the, the prophets talk about, or Jesus God talks about when he says, these people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me.
So I do think that that is a that that’s a genuine concern, and I think evangelicals are right to have it. At the same time, I think we, I, I don’t think that we need to have an allergy. To anything that’s formal like this across the board, because I think that actually short [00:40:00] circuits the intent of some of these tools, if you write off some of these tools, you know, liturgical forms, written prayers, catechism, things like that what you’re actually doing is you’re, you’re writing off some of the tools that have been instrumental in people’s lives in actually igniting.
The heart fanning the flame that you know the spirit already has in our heart by giving us really good thought out expressions of vital Christian truth rightly understood. It’s like, it’s like memorizing a Bible verse. There’s nothing magical about memorizing a Bible verse, but you are way more likely to internalize a Bible verse that you’ve committed to memory and for it to drop from the head to the heart in the moment that you need it than if you don’t have that me that Bible verse memorized.
That’s good. I think in, in a similar way. Praying, written prayers from people in the past, you know, helps. It’s kind of like, I always like to compare it to, you know, or, or even en engaging some of these catechism questions from the past, or praying written prayers. It’s kinda like a kid trying on [00:41:00] mom and dad’s old shoes, you know?
You’re, you, you’re, you’re, you’re a little kid and in you’re clunking around in dad’s shoes and you’re like, man, will my feet ever be this big? You know, some of those, those older prayers, those older expressions of faith the reason you pray them isn’t because your heart. Would express the same words yet, but because you want to expand your heart, you want your heart to be oriented, to grow into those old shoes, so that eventually yes, you would spontaneously express some of the same glorious praises that this, you know, ancient saint of the faith has, has expressed.
I think the same is true with the catechism. It’s that you want to have your. Your mind formed. We wanna be transformed by the renewing of our minds. And one way we do that is by submitting ourselves to some of these forms so that we learn them, that we internalize them, and that we pray that the Lord would use them to guide us and to to, to, to, you know, to put our hearts in a posture of worship.
Dr. Mark Turman: Yeah. And that really gets at something that, that I thought was important in this conversation. I give you a little story. The second church I ever pastored [00:42:00] was in a small town, about 2000 people. And in those days we would have one of the leaders in the church, a deacon in the church, come and make an offering prayer before we gathered the morning’s offering.
And on this one particular Sunday this deacon walked up, had a half sheet of paper. He had, he had prepared his prayer and he simply read it off of the piece of paper that he had and was one of the most profound and thought provoking and meaningful prayers. I have ever heard anyone pray in a public worship service.
As soon as that worship service was over, I had other people in, in the church complaining to me that he had read his prayer. And that, that was somehow disingenuous to the moment, and I had exactly the opposite reaction. And so we, we find ourselves in this tension between liturgical traditions and free church tradition, and we’re always gonna be in that in a certain [00:43:00] way.
But Thomas, I wanted you just, particularly from the work that you do as a pastor to comment on this. How, when using a tool like this catechism that you guys have, have written together, how do you guard against simply getting to the place where you know facts about God and facts about faith in Jesus, but you don’t know him personally?
Yeah. How do, how do you, how do we not go down that Pharisee road?
Thomas Wax: It’s a great question. The Paul’s admonition to the church in Corinth springs to mind, right? He watch it. Guys knowledge puffs up, but love builds up and we’re always trying to build up that double love of God and neighbor in everything we do.
So how, how do we get there? I mean, this is the, this is the great challenge. It’s the great, it’s the great obstacle for, for Christians. It’s, it’s one we, we, we, we, we must tackle. I’m, I’m gonna come back to it. I’ve, I’ve gotta go back to just what Trevin was [00:44:00] saying. It’s it’s so helpful as as Keller would help point out to us.
You know, catechisms are essentially hammering up. Like a little thimble sized category, like in the life of someone for the first time. So you start to develop just the, this notion justification. So there’s a, there’s, there’s a concept and there’s an answer. And if you can get that into a little one, then you’re just trying to grow that person across time where that little thimble sized category becomes a, a massive well of, of thoughts and ideas.
That’s what we’re trying to form in, in people. And while it’s a, it’s a perfectly good tool, we just acknowledge the historical trends, how the, the pendulum does swing, doesn’t it? It’s this one generation who was very liturgical and it was very by the book, and at times it could have been accused of being rote that, that swing’s a little more expressive.
But where does it, where does it go? I’m literally having conversations with college students on the university campus. That are saying, I want to [00:45:00] go to church and I want it to feel like church. They don’t wanna experience really, I mean, many people sentimentally don’t wanna experience like church in a honky Tok just down the street here in Broadway.
They don’t want just feel like any other concert in town. They want to go to a space, they wanna be a part of rhythms rituals and routines in a fresh way. That’s what we’re, we’re, we’re thinking indeed hoping the catechism could land in very fertile ground for some of those trends and, and swings that we’re experiencing right now.
But, but to answer your question very, very, very directly the danger is it can become like a trivia. It can, it can become a sort of, you know, bible, Bible jeopardy of sorts. And at the end of the day, you just don’t love Jesus anymore. We, we try to help with it, by the way. It’s, put it together.
The key is to be rooted in scripture. The key is for it to be worked out and practiced in community and connected in worship. So it’s not a fact [00:46:00] to memorize, it’s a truth to live, live out in our lives. Yeah, it’s not a quiz book though. You know, our hearts, we, we wanna be performative in all kinds of ways and we’ll take even good things like scripture.
Try to flip that into some sort of a way of demonstrating ourself and, and our piety. So how I’m imagining it as we’re preparing to work through this as a congregation beginning next October. Once the children’s book is out we’re imagining this being something that we’ll study together in our small group discipleship.
But there we’re looking for it to be collaborative conversations. Here’s a question and an answer and some commentary we read. Let’s talk about it. How does this show up in our everyday lives? How does this show up in our work, in our parenting, in our retirement, in our schooling? So we’re, we’re looking to, to have it there.
And we’re looking to, when we get into the corporate worship gathering not to have it something that’s a, a presentation. Here’s the question and here’s the answer. But we’re [00:47:00] looking to utilize it as a call and response in the life of our congregation, where we’re all reciting it, we’re all confessing it together.
But the, the, the, the human heart is, is infinitely prone to self-justification through all sorts of, all sorts of means. We’re hoping, keeping it in scripture keeping it right there in community, remembering knowledge puffs up, it’s love that builds up. So we’re trying to keep it saturated in the love of the father.
Dr. Mark Turman: Yeah, I think that’s so good, especially the call out to, to walk through a resource like this, use this tool in community. To hold each other to the truths of the faith, and then to also encourage each other and even hold each other accountable. I, I was, I was thinking this morning that you know, yes, we all know that we need to call out that distinction.
The difference between knowing about Jesus and actually knowing Jesus, but at the same time, it is a unique relationship that operates in ways different from every other relationship. And maybe it is that most [00:48:00] of the time you need to know about him before you can actually know him. At least in the most significant and profound ways.
What do you guys hope that this does in terms of confronting the, the narrative of secularism? Let’s, let’s, maybe that’s a good place for us to land today is how can this book really pull people, pull believers of every maturity. Away from this secular narrative that separates Sunday from Monday and tries to compartmentalize faith as just a box that you open up every now and then.
Trevin Wax: My hope is that the answers to these questions and the way, and not just the answers, but the story that comes about through the answers of these questions and and showcasing the biblical narrative, will remind people that this sort of frame of reference where everything is just this world only and that God is sort of just a value thing.
If you want it, great. If you don’t, that’s fine. You know, it’s a personal, private thing, but that people will recognize working through this catechism. Christianity is public [00:49:00] truth. The gospel, the resurrection has implications for all of reality. It has implications for the way we live, like you said, not just on Sundays, but also through all throughout the week, and so that people will see the expansiveness of the Christian faith and realize not just that it, how big it is, but how good it is.
Dr. Mark Turman: Yeah. Thomas, I’ll give you the last word.
Thomas Wax: Yeah. Maybe we can maybe we can end where we began by remembering the, the helpful theologian, Leslie Newgen. When, you know, Trevon and I were working through the catechism isn’t God great how he’s always doing things that you can’t even detect that he’s doing, and you kind get to the end of a thing, look back and see it.
It’s it, it left me with the, the projects left me with this hope. I hope that as believers work through this, it will develop end to end them. That missionary instinct, that missionary notion of being able to detect, wait, what is the world story? What is the cultural story and how can the two come into a [00:50:00] missionary encounter to quote new again?
How, how can they come together in a dialogical relationship where Christianity is seeking to connect with the cultural story, seeking to critique it and confront it with an aim of conversion? I really hope that gets developed in the hearts of men and women and children, whole congregation, small group Bible studies on the college campus that choose to work through this together.
Like a, a, a fresh equipping, a fresh preparedness and readiness to be able to draw out to what is the cultural story here? What does Christianity have to say about it, and how do the two come together in a missionary encounter?
Dr. Mark Turman: Yeah, a great word. And I think it’ll be a very useful tool for that to help people identify the truth and identify as well where something is not true or half true.
And to bring that more as, as Trevin said or Trevin said at the beginning, that that which is more true, that which is fully true and that which is most beautiful. And I think, I think this [00:51:00] tool will go a long way in doing that. For our audience, just wanna remind you again, this is a resource called the Gospel Way.
50 Truths That Take On the World by Thomas West and Trevin Wax. You can find it at all of the major book publishers and you can follow these guys online as well, and we would encourage you to do that. They are faithful followers of Christ. They will help you. To walk with Christ as well. Guys, thank you for being a part of the Faith and Clarity podcast and for the work that you’re doing, not only with this resource, but with other things as well.
Thank you to our audience for tuning in. And we put would just ask you to not only pray for us, but to rate and review us. On your platform so that other people can find us and share this with others who may be looking for a good tool as they grow the garden of their discipleship and their relationship with Christ.
God bless you. We’ll see you next time on Faith and [00:52:00] Clarity.
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